May 2007

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A faculty team from the Illinois Wesleyan University School of Nursing has been selected through a national competition to participate in a series of education events to enhance the teaching of undergraduate public health education. The events are part of the first joint education collaboration of the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) and the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (APTR).

The IWU faculty team is composed of Cindy Kerber, professor of nursing, and Laurine Brown, professor of environmental studies and health. Kerber will attend the Public Health and Liberal Education Faculty Development Workshop to be convened in Washington, D.C. on July 9-10. The workshop participants will tailor the experience to their own needs and interests by focusing on one of three breakout sessions: Public Health 101, Epidemiology 101, and Global Health 101. Each content area will provide curricular frameworks and syllabi illustrating the types of materials that can be used as well as successful teaching techniques. The workshop will offer hands-on participatory exercises designed to provide practice using and critiquing a range of approaches to teaching and curriculum design.

A member of the faculty team will also have the opportunity to participate in a one-day skills building institute held in conjunction with the APTR Annual Meeting in February 2008. The entire team will participate in an expanded faculty development institute schedule for July 2008 in Washington, D.C.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University Associate Professor of Philosophy Carl Gillett has been awarded a John Templeton Foundation Grant to write about his new approach to debates over ‘reduction’ and ‘emergence’ within the sciences and philosophy.

The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life’s biggest questions. These questions range from explorations into the laws of nature and the structure of the universe, to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness and creativity.

“My work seeks to widen our understanding of these views and their implications about the world we live in and our own natures,” said Gillett.

Over the last 80 years, science has developed what Gillett calls a “reductionist” point of view, contending that all objects composed can be reduced down to their components, such as atoms. However, at the turn of the 21st century, scientists in a range of disciplines are once again embracing an “emergentist” view that opposes scientific reductionism, accepting that all things, including humans, are thoroughly composed.

“Professor Gillett’s work is unusual in the debate over reduction and emergence in that he begins by taking both “sides” seriously,” said the John Templeton Foundation Director of Life Science Programs Paul Wason. “It is also unusual in its ambition and promise–to produce a serious philosophical work that will also be valued by scientists for their own work.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Right now, Illinois Wesleyan University Associate Professor of French Christopher Callahan should be walking up the steps to the Solesmes Abbey with the chants of the Benedictine monks echoing all around. Callahan planned to bring students to France and England to explore Gothic and Romanesque cultures, but he was halted in his plans by the high cost of travel.

“We could not make the trip financially feasible. The dollar is not doing well against the cost of the euros and pounds,” said Callahan from his office overlooking IWU’s Eckley Quadrangle in Bloomington, Ill., which is a long way from the castles and abbeys where he hoped to travel with students this spring during the University’s May Term. “It’s difficult for Americans to get abroad right now.”

Callahan estimated it would take 24 students to make the trip affordable, but fell short of that. Instead of canceling the class, he decided on another option. While researching material for his class, The Plantagenet World: France and England 1100-1400, Callahan discovered Web sites that included virtual tours.

Now sitting at his computer, he uses the mouse to pan 360 degrees to tour through the breathtaking Conques Abbey in southwestern France. The image on the screen angles up to the impossibly high ceilings and Romanesque arches. “With the help of the Internet, we can even go where tourists usually don’t,” said Callahan, maneuvering the image to peer down from a balcony onto the altar below.

Callahan plans to take his class on several virtual tours, including sites in Paris, London and the Loire Valley of France. “This is something that was not conceivable even two years ago,” said Callahan.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – In the days since al-Qaeda became a household word, Westerners have grappled with the distinction between radical Islam and Islam as practiced in mainstream Muslim culture. To gain insights into the impact of religion on Muslim youth, the first phase of a long-term study has found that social success is strongly linked to religious involvement within the Islamic majority nation of Indonesia, according to the study’s co-author Doran French, professor and chair of psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University.

This study of Muslim 13-year-olds found a correlation between religious involvement across many indices of social competence or success. French and his collaborators found that adolescents with higher degrees of spirituality and religious practice were more popular with peers, had greater academic achievement, displayed more prosocial behavior (being helpful to others), had greater self-esteem, and were more able to regulate their behavior. Those with higher religious involvement were less likely to exhibit deviant behavior or experience negative “internalizing behavior” such as depression or anxiety.

French suggested that a key to interpreting these findings is understanding the context of a homogenously religious culture, where religion permeates society and is a public, community identity rather than a compartmentalized, private experience as in the U.S. For example, he said, the team’s research assistants would stop meetings to observe the call to prayers, for which television shows also are interrupted.

“I think within a homogeneous religious society, being a competent person, being a successful person also means being a religious person,” French said.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Nine Illinois Wesleyan University students will join Teach For America, the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit to teaching low-income students in urban and rural public schools for the next two years. This is the highest number of students from Illinois Wesleyan accepted into the program in one year.

“So many students and corps members have told me this is a life changing experience,” said Bix Gabriel, regional communications director of Teach for America. “The students have the opportunity to make a real impact every day.”

The students will be sent across the United States this fall to assist in classrooms.

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